


Home

by GraeWrites



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series), Thomas Sanders, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Crying, Deceit is not a great guy, Gaslighting, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Panic Attack, self doubt and deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 17:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15005534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraeWrites/pseuds/GraeWrites
Summary: Virgil comes to understand that everything he has is based on a lie. Virgil angst/hurt/comfort. Platonic LAMP/CALM.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr. Still working on transferring stuff over here as well. Sorry for the flood of fics, everyone. This is heavily inspired by “Words Fail” from the Dear Evan Hansen Soundtrack (a small splash of “You Will Be Found” kind of at the end?). DEH just makes me think of the Sides in general, but this song for Virgil especially. Edited only by myself so all mistakes are mine. This was my first time writing Virgil (as a focus, at least). Hope it’s okay!

“ _You_.” Virgil’s eyes darken at the figure that appears behind him in the mirror. He leans against the door way as Virgil finishes applying his eyeshadow. “Get out. Don’t you have some dishes to clean?”

“Very original.” He looks unimpressed. “It’s your fault, you know.”

Virgil rolls his eyes. “No, it isn’t.”

“You said it yourself, Virge,” he says. He casually inspects the fingers of his yellow gloved hand.  “You always aim to protect. So where were you to protect him from me?”

Virgil’s jaw snaps shut. His hand starts shaking and he tightens his grip on the eyeliner almost hard enough to snap it in half. “Get  _out_.”

“Oh, get  _over_  yourself,” he hisses back. “You act like you’re so much better than me. But you lie too, Virgil. You lie to all of them, all the time.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh, you don’t?” He cocks an eyebrow. “So you’ve told them, then? Who you used to be? Who you  _truly are?_ ”

Virgil shakes his head. He looks away from his reflection. “I don’t know what you’re talking about—“

“That you’re a  _Dark Side_ , Virgil.” His yellow eye glints in the shadow. “Or have you been playing pretend for so long that you’ve forgotten?”

“Enough!” Virgil whirls around and hurls the eyeliner pencil in his direction. Except… he isn’t there. The pencil snaps in half as it cracks against the door. Virgil’s eyes widen. He looks back in the mirror to find him staring back as a reflection, with a bored expression.

Virgil looks back over his shoulder. The doorway stands empty. Back to the mirror. The reflection is still there.

“This,” he glances down at his form, “This is all you, kid.” His gaze sharpens and Virgil finds that he can’t look away. “Which is why I’m not saying anything you don’t already know. What you have with them isn’t real because it’s all founded on a lie. At most, you’re playing house with them.”

Virgil squeezes his eyes shut. “N-no.”

The corner of his lip curls into a wicked smile. “Keep lying to yourself, Virge. The more you do it, the more like me you become.”

“SHUT UP!” Virgil shouts, gripping the edge of the counter. The room around him goes silent. He doesn’t know how much time has passed before he finally opens his eyes again. No reflection, and—glancing over his shoulder—no presence either. He’s gone.

 _Was he even here to begin with?_ Virgil’s hands are shaking. He sinks to the floor.

He draws his hood over his head, his breath still coming in shallow shuddering gasps.  _In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight._ Virgil chants the words in his head in a futile, desperate hope that it might block out the words ricocheting in his ears.  The shadows loom dark and long in his room, and Virgil presses himself deeper into the corner between the wall and the bathtub. His spine digs into the porcelain, his knees pulled up against his chest.

_In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight._

This is the third panic attack this week. It is Tuesday.

Virgil squeezes his eyes shut and pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his palms. He pushes his hands into the floor as if it might literally  _ground_  him.

_Four. Seven. Eight._

There’s a knock. “Virgil?” It sounds like Logan. “Patton requested that I let you know that dinner is ready.”

Virgil sucks in a breath—shuddering, wet—and coughs. “I’ll—uh,” Virgil’s voice is shaking and strained and he’s hoping against hope that Logan doesn’t notice. “I’ll be right there. I just… need a minute.”

There’s a pause and Virgil thinks maybe Logan has walked away. But he doesn’t hear any retreating footsteps, and Virgil knows that it’s much more likely that Logan is standing outside of his door.

His suspicion is confirmed when Logan speaks again. “Are you okay? Can I come in?”

“I’m fine,” Virgil says, both surprised and grateful that his voice doesn’t shake as much this time. His bearings are slowly starting to come back to him. The texture of the bath mat rubbing into his fingers as he keeps his hands pressed against the floor. Faintly, he can smell the cupcakes he’d seen Patton starting to work on baking earlier today. He can hear another set of footsteps approaching the door and then—

“Virgil?” Roman’s voice.

“He said he’s okay…” Logan’s voice, a little quieter as he addresses the Creative Side. The doubt and skepticism shadows the matter of fact tone the Logical Side usually had.

The familiarity of it all—Roman and Logan’s voices, the smell of Patton baking—expands a warm calm in his core. Virgil takes in a deep, slow breath.

When nothing else worked, on particularly bad days, Virgil had learned to rely on the other three sides to bring him back down to earth. Logan would reason away his more intense fears. Roman would come up with creative ideas for distractions and expression that helped him work through some of his feelings and thoughts when dwelling would only send him into a deeper spiral. And Patton. Patton was always there for him when he needed someone to listen or…

 _You lie to all of them, all the time._  The warm peacefulness quickly turns cold and painful and sharp. He stifles a gasp as fresh tears spring into his eyes.

 _Not now,_  Virgil tells himself. Brushing impatiently at his eyes. Dinner is ready and if he didn’t come down, he’d only worry them more. He’d pull himself together, eat dinner and act normal, and…

 _And_   _what?_  Part of him whispers. Virgil shakes his head, wipes his eyes. He thinks about glancing in the mirror to see just how badly his eyeshadow looks now but he doesn’t. Just in case he’s there again. Instead, Virgil flips out the light and steps out into the hallway.

…

At the dinner table, Virgil can feel Patton’s intense, worried gaze watching him closely. Glancing at the barely-touched plate of pasta in front of him. Virgil isn’t hungry—not really, anyway—but he twirls his fork in the angel hair and shoves it into his mouth for Patton’s benefit more than anything.  

Logan sighs exasperatedly. “Roman, that’s just not logical.”

“You’re right.” Roman waves his fork at Logan. “It’s better. It’s  _magic_.”

Logan arches an eyebrow. “Oh. Well, if you’re introducing magic into this context then might it be surmised that…”

As Logan and Roman banter back and forth about Roman’s newest idea, Virgil absently nibbles at the garlic bread on his plate. Patton excitedly mentions something about fitting cats into the story that Roman was trying to regale the table with—“well, with magic  _anything_  is possible, kiddo!”—and the Anxious Side can’t help the tightness that gives a sharp squeeze at his chest.

Patton says something else and Roman laughs. The Moral Side’s eyes twinkle with a warm, almost paternal affection. Out of the corner of his eye, Virgil sees Logan barely suppressing a smile of his own. A few days ago, Virgil would have been doing the same. He would have felt at home, secure and safe and grounded among the other three. He would’ve felt happy. Like he belonged.

But he can’t quite shake the thoughts echoing in his head with increasing forcefulness.

_You’re a Dark Side, Virgil. Or have you been playing pretend for so long that you’ve forgotten?_

“If I may change the subject,” Logan says, suddenly breaking into Virgil’s thoughts. Logan adjusts the frame of his glasses. “I know that we were originally going to watch  _Snow White_  tonight, but I think given recent events we may want to reconsider that option.”

The comment sobers the room quickly, and Virgil notices the change immediately. Nobody needs to ask why Logan makes the suggestion. Virgil glances up just in time to see Roman look uncomfortably at his plate.

Patton’s expression softens sadly. “I think that’s a smart idea, kiddo.”

Roman’s silverware clatters against his plate as he drops the knife and fork in his hands. “Those cursed Dark Sides ruin  _everything_ ,” he grits out. Virgil’s stomach twists.

Patton reaches across the table and covers Roman’s balled fist with his hand. “Roman, don’t worry. There’s a ton of movies we can watch tonight still. Why don’t you make a suggestion?”

Roman looks up at him skeptically, then purses his lips in thought. “Hm… Well, would anyone else be interested in watching  _Moana_?”

“I think that’s a great idea, kiddo!”

“‘Well, what can I say except you’re welcome?’” Roman sings, but his voice sounds a bit distant in Virgil’s ears.

_Ruin. Everything._

“Virge?”

_What you have with them isn’t real._

“Honey?”

_It’s all founded on a lie._

“Virgil?” Someone puts a hand on his arm.

Virgil blinks a few times before shaking his head. “Huh? Sorry.”

The worry from earlier is back in Patton’s eyes. “We were just asking if you wanted to join us for the movie.”

Virgil thinks of Patton’s soft smile. Roman’s laugh. Logan’s exasperated sigh that always preceded a barely-contained smile.  _Dark Sides ruin everything_.

“Uh, I think I’m gonna sit this one out, guys,” Virgil says, pushing back from the table. He flips his hood back up over his head. “Thanks, though.”

He’s out of the kitchen before the other three can talk him into staying.

…

When Virgil gets to his room he practically slams the door closed before sliding down to the floor against it. His hood is pulled low and tight, his hoodie zipped and his hands are shoved in his pockets and he’s  _exhausted_  but the thoughts and voices rage around him anyway.

_Your fault._

Virgil shakes his head. He tries to think of Logan. What would Logan say to that? Virgil doesn’t know. Logan would probably agree, wouldn’t he? It… it made sense to Virgil.

_You always aim to protect. So where were you to protect him from me?_

Virgil covers his ears even though he knows the voices are inside his head. He thinks of Roman. Roman’s a knight. Roman knoww about protecting people. Why couldn’t he be more like Roman?

_You lie to all of them, all the time._

Patton said lying was bad. If he knew, Patton would be so… ashamed.

A sob works its way up Virgil’s throat as the truth settles deep inside of him. He’d spent so much time pretending to be something other than a Dark Side because he’d found family amidst Patton and Logan and Roman and Thomas. He’d found a kind of safety that Virgil had never felt before when he was near them. He’d found  _home_  with them.

He’d found home in Logan’s charts and graphs and spoonfuls of Crofters and longwinded line of reasoning that always seemed to calm him. He’d found home in Roman’s shameless belting of Disney songs and his countless tales of slaying the Dragon Witch and his sincere earnestness and ambition. He’d found home in Patton’s bright smile and warm hugs and the way he called Virgil “kiddo”…

But none of that was real, was it?  Virgil’s vision blurs with hot tears.

What Virgil had with them wasn’t real because the foundation of it all was based on a lie. And that… that couldn’t stand. They deserved better than that. Better than the lies that Virgil had been feeding them in one way or another by pretending he wasn’t a Dark Side. Roman was right: Dark Sides  _do_  ruin everything.

But this?  _Them?_  Virgil could keep himself from ruining that. He had to.

…

“Virgil? Hey, what’s wrong?”

Virgil takes in a deep breath as Patton sits up from being leaned back into the couch. Logan—worry etched into the crease between his brows—reaches for the remote and pauses the movie. Roman is frowning, sitting up from having his head in Logan’s lap. Virgil’s hands are shaking slightly and he shoves them into his pockets before any of the other three can notice.

“I…” Virgil suddenly doesn’t know what to say. The intense, concerned gazes of the three other Sides feels like a lot all of the sudden. “I’m…” There’s the faintest tremor in his voice and Virgil knows that  _that_  doesn’t get past them.

“Virgil, take a deep breath,” Logan instructs, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.  _That somehow makes it worse._ Virgil’s jaw jumps. He fists his hands in his pockets and does his best to take a deep breath. It shakes just a little as he exhales.

“There’s… there’s something that I need to tell you. All of you.”  _Why is this so hard?_ Virgil feels the tears starting to press against the back of his eyes and he blinks a few times. This is hard enough without crying during it.

“You can tell us anything, Virge,” Roman says, tilting his head slightly in confusion.

Virgil shakes his head. “I… I don’t know how to say it. I’m…” Virgil can feel something hardening and tightening in his chest. “I’m just…” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I’ve been lying to you all for a long time and I… I think it’s time I finally came clean.”

“Kiddo?” Something catches in Virgil’s throat at the way Patton says it. The Anxious Side suddenly can’t look him in the eyes.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Virgil suddenly blurts out. “I don’t…I thought maybe… maybe I could be part of this. At first it was just because Thomas summoned me, but then… I…” Virgil’s vision blurs. “I saw how you all were with and around each other and I… I’d never had that before. And then you were  _letting me_   _be part of it_  and you all told me I was  _supposed_ to be part of it and I just…”

“Vir—“ Roman tries, but Virgil plows on because if he lets anyone else say anything before he gets it all out he knows he may never say it again.

“I didn’t know how to let go,” Virgil says. “So I… I guess somewhere along the way I convinced myself that I belonged with you all because… it was so easy to believe that. And maybe I even somehow convinced you all of it too. And I shouldn’t have done that but you’re all…. You’re…”

He clenches his jaw again, his chest tightening even more. He feels something hot and wet slide down his cheeks. “You three are everything I’d ever wished for and wanted. And I wanted to believe that it was  _real_ , but it’s  _not_. It can’t be. Because I’m… I’m…”

 _Just say it,_  Virgil tells himself harshly. “Because I’m a Dark Side. And I don’t belong with you all, and… I…. ” he trails off. His vision is still blurry from tears but he thinks maybe that’s for the best because he isn’t sure he could take their expressions right now. “I’m sorry… I…I’m  _sorry_.”

The words are met with a deafening silence.

“How long has Deceit been talking to you, Virgil?” Logan asks, his voice dark and with an edge that Virgil had never heard from him before.

Virgil blinks a few times. “What? I… he hasn’t.”  _Has he?_  Wasn’t his reflection a figment of Virgil’s imagination? He wasn’t actually there, so it wasn’t actually him, right?

“Falsehood.”

“Logan, calm down,” Patton says, but Virgil can see when he blinks again and momentarily clears his vision that the Moral Side’s gaze has not left Virgil. In the brief second before fresh tears well, he can’t read Patton’s expression.

“Patton, it was bad enough when he pretended to be you. When he silenced me.” Logan’s voice is rising and he jumps to his feet. “But this? Playing head games with Virgil?”

“It wasn’t him!” Virgil suddenly shouts, louder than he means to. “I know how to shut Deceit down, remember? This is the  _truth_. I was the one being–”

“Falsehood,” Logan repeats firmly, crossing over to the Anxious Side in a few strides. “I don’t know how he got into your head, but I know this is his fault. You want to know what the truth is, Virgil? You belong here with us. We care about you and we want you here.”

Virgil is shaking his head even before Logan has finished. “But it’s not  _real_. You think you want me around, but that’s because you didn’t know that I’m a D-Dark Side and…” Virgil hiccups, fighting back the sobs working their way up his throat.

“Virge…” Roman says, crossing over to him. The Prince lays a hand gently on Virgil’s upper arm and the sudden contact is at once jolting and grounding.  _Warm. Familiar. Safe._ “I spend a lot of time in the world of make-believe. I consider myself an expert. And I may not be Logan, but I know quite a lot. Like what is real and what is make-believe. And you. Here with us? Being a part of us because  _we_  want you to be…not because of you thinking you’ve made us feel that way? ” Roman very gently squeezes Virgil’s arm. “I have every confidence in the world that that’s real.”

Virgil grits his teeth. “You—you said… you said Dark Sides ruin every—everything.”

“You are not a Dark Side, Virgil,” Roman says softly but emphatically. “You’re one of us. You always have been.”

“You don’t ruin us,” Logan adds, putting together what Virgil wasn’t saying. “You make us better. Roman told you that once, and he was speaking the  _truth_. Not a lie. Not founded on a lie. But the truth.”

Logan’s words are met with a momentary silence. Virgil stands stock still with Roman’s hand on his arm. He sniffs and glances up, surprised to see Patton crossing from the couch to stand directly in front of him. Patton’s dark eyes look at Virgil closely, like he’s searching for something. Virgil is reminded suddenly of Deceit’s voice when he’d talked to Thomas.

 _You might not like what you find_.

Virgil tries to hold his gaze back, tries to keep his chin up and accept whatever shame and rejection lies in Patton’s eyes for him because maybe Logan and Roman are wrong and he deserves—

Virgil’s thoughts cut out as Patton wraps his arms up around him and crushes him in a hug. “Dad?” Virgil’s voice cracks and he can’t quite contain the sob that follows.

He feels Patton rest one of his hands on the back of his head to keep him there. “Virge, you’re always— _always_ —gonna be one of my kids. You belong with us. You always have.”

Patton pauses, and Virgil is pretty sure that he’s staining the Moral Side’s cardigan with his tears but the hug is too tight and Patton doesn’t let Virgil pull away just yet. After a moment, he feels more warmth and weight against him as both Logan and Patton join in on the hug. The final thread holding him together comes loose and Virgil can’t help but feel these three are the only reason he’s still standing right now.

“I know you used to spend a lot of time with them, kiddo,” Patton says gently. “But when you left and came here? You came  _home_.”

He’s surrounded by them. By their warmth and their weight and their scent and the rise and fall of their chests. Proof that they are here. That this is real. That Virgil is home.


End file.
